


Those Who Don't Flinch

by LittleBuddy



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, sleepy 4077, we love to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleBuddy/pseuds/LittleBuddy
Summary: Exhaustion hits the 4077 hard after hours of non-stop surgery. B.J. aids a friend and takes a nap, mess tent food is terrible, and Chaya hopes she didn't drool in her sleep. Written for a new friend - here's to the characters that bring us together and the ideas they let us share.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Those Who Don't Flinch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star_of_Earendil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_of_Earendil/gifts).



> For Scout - Chaya is endearing, and I'm glad you let me write her.

They’re midway through an all-weekend poker game when they get word that the army made an unsuccessful push on hill 304.

“What can we expect, Klinger?”

“I’d make sure you use the bathroom before scrubbing in, sir.”

Twenty minutes later, choppers are landing on the helipad. In the pre-dawn light, B.J. can just make out the dust being kicked up by a herd of ambulances winding their way to the camp. He and Hawk work triage with the nurses, trying to fill the gaps where they can, offering a reassuring pat on the shoulder to the men who are still coherent. It was bad, from the looks of things – lots of bleeders, a couple delicate head wounds, and what looked like a possible amputation. 

Once they get things settled enough outside to leave it to the rest of the team, he and Hawkeye go in and start the process of getting ready for surgery. On his way to the sink, B.J. peeks into the OR. Chaya and Potter have already got patients on the table, heads bent over their work. Charles is away for R&R – they hadn’t expected casualties any time soon, and it can’t be helped.

“You want to help me get started on that chest? I’ll need another pair of hands.”

B.J. nodded. “Sure thing.”

\- - -

“Padre, I hate to say this and jinx us, but while it’s calm, I wonder if you could wrestle up some coffee?” Potter peers out over his spectacles, eyebrows raised in question. His eyes are red, his face is tired, mirroring the expression of the other surgeons. 

“Of course. I’ll bring enough for everyone,” the priest replies. He’s been there all night, diligent as the surgeons. In his own way, he’s operating alongside them.

“I have to warn you, Colonel,” Hawk says, “I think the coffee’s broken. I just finished my third cup and I’m still hearing in color.”

B.J. has to laugh. It’s not even that funny; he’s exhausted, and the humor is the only relief he’s getting at this point.

“That could be the fact that we’ve been at this for eight hours,” Chaya offers.

“Ten,” Klinger corrects her.

B.J. meets Chaya’s eyes across the room, and she shrugs. “Okay, ten. I can’t be right all the time,” she teases. Her eyes crinkle above her mask, and he returns the smile before going back to the shoulder he’s working on.

\- - -

“Food?”

“Huh?” B.J. blinks awake, realizing he’d been dozing against the wall he was leaning on.

“You wanna eat?”

“Did the mess tent have a miracle? Do we have something edible?”

Hawkeye scoffs. “Beats me, but maybe the fact that I can't see straight, will help me choke it down.”

Chaya leans up against Hawkeye where they sit on the bench outside OR. They’ve finally got a moment of silence, but everyone knows it won’t last long. A counter attack was launched, some high-up got a bee in their bonnet, and they’d have more wounded within an hour.

With encouragement from Klinger, they make their way across the compound, leaning against each other like drunken bar mates on the way home from the saloon. They barely have time to sit down before Klinger rushes in.

“I hate to interrupt such a good meal, but we’ve got issues in post-op.”

“Who?”

“Stevenson.”

Chaya, tired as she must be, responds immediately. Hawkeye’s quick to follow her. They’d worked on the soldier for two hours together, finally getting him stabilized enough to feel comfortable closing and monitoring him. Good thing they’d set a nurse to watch him constantly – the two surgeons spend the next hour keeping him alive. The OR is silent except for the sounds of surgical tools clanking against trays. At one point, Chaya swears, and Hawkeye glances up at Klinger – who seems to get the message without verbal cues, heading off to find Mulcahy. B.J. watches them with a feeling of dread, and hopes he’s wrong.

The soldier comes out of the woods long enough to give them hope. His blood pressure picks up, heart rate evening out, even though it’s nothing like it should be. The tension in the OR lifts slightly, and the nurses seem peppier.

Stevenson dies ten minutes after they finish operating.

\- - -

“Close for me, nurse.” B.J. strips out of his gloves, holding his hands up and away from the blood-splattered gown he wears. 

“Need another, Klinger.”

“Your wish is my command. We’re down to the lacerations and things.”

B.J. surveys the group in post-op and returns to the OR, stepping in front of Chaya, who's just finished another surgery. She looks up at him, brown eyes watery. From exhaustion or sorrow is anyone’s guess.

“He has a little boy,” Chaya says. B.J. feels a pang in his stomach, Erin flashing briefly through his mind. A surge of overwhelming anger fills him, threatening to escape in hot tears. He takes a breath, and another, lungs fit to burst – and lets it out, feeling himself sag under the sorrow that lingers after the anger dissolves.

“Whoever said ‘all is fair in love and war’ clearly never did time as a MASH surgeon,” Hawkeye says. His voice is flat and sounds as tired as he looks. He motions for the nurse to finish up at his table and makes his way over to the group.

“There’s only a couple more guys out there. The colonel and I can finish the rest,” B.J. tells them. 

“You sure?” Hawkeye asks. Chaya opens her mouth to protest – B.J. knows she’d rather be demoted than be unhelpful.

“Positive. You two had to come back here before the rest of us, so it evens out.”

Potter nods from his position at one of the tables. He’s tired too, but he’s kept his head high and there’s only a slight slump in his shoulders. “You two high-tail it on out of here and get some grub. Hunnicutt and I have it handled.”

Hawkeye nods, stripping out of his gloves. Turning to Chaya, he holds out a hand. “Are you free this evening?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Barbeque ribs, corn on the cob – on the cob specifically, not creamed – and hot rolls.” He sighs wistfully. “Since none of that is available, I suppose whatever’s on the mess tent is on my mind.”

“Sure. It’s a date.”

“The question is, what _is_ the date? Is it Monday? Tuesday?” He places a hand on the small of her back, guiding her out of the OR as they chat, his way of saying _we tried, we tried, we tried. It’s not okay, but it’ll be okay._

\- - -

B.J. sticks around for a while after they get through in OR. He checks on patients in post-op, thanks one of the nurses who was especially helpful, and checks in with Margaret.

“Okay?”

She glances at him, quirking an eyebrow his way before turning back to the chart in her hand. “Are you?”

He shrugs, smiling, though it feels half-hearted. “Ask me again once I’ve slept for a week.”

She smirks. “More like a month.”

There’s something about coming out on the other side of a long-haul operation that ups the spirit and gives them all a little burst of energy. Mulcahy calls it “The Lord’s way of buoying the soul.” Hawkeye calls it adrenaline. Either way, everyone is floating on it for the last few minutes it sticks around. It never lasts long, and they’ll all be crashing soon – one more reason B.J. is thankful when Hawk relieves him in post-op.

Emerging into the twilight, B.J. weighs the distance to the Swamp and the mess tent. 

He settles on the latrine.

When he emerges, he bypasses dinner (or lunch? he's not sure which meal this would be) and goes straight for his cot. Or at least, he was going to – upon entering the tent, he sees Chaya sitting on the edge of her bed, face in hands.

“Chaya?”

She startles, looking up at him with wide eyes. The edge of concern he’d been teetering on tips and sends him into full blown worry.

“What’s wrong?” 

She’s teary, and he gestures to the cot beside her. She nods, swiping furiously at her eyes. He sits beside her and waits, all too familiar with the feeling of being caught crying and exhausted and unable to do anything about it.

“It’s stupid,” she says finally. She laughs, sniffing deeply through her tears, all snotty and congested.  


“I doubt that, but tell me what ‘it’ is and I’ll let you know.”

She raises a weary hand and points at her head.

“I don’t... I don’t understand. You?”

“No!” She puts her face back in her hands. “My hair.”

He’s dumbstruck. _Her hair?_ Luckily, she continues, saving him from embarrassing himself by trying to compliment her or reassure her that her hair is nowhere near stupid. 

“It’s tangled!” The sentence comes out as a choked sob, and he understands.

Peggy used to get like this. Especially after she’d given birth to Erin, she’d dissolve over little things when the exhaustion was high. It wasn’t _really_ about the fact that they were out of flour, or that the mail had come late – it was just the straw on the camel’s back, the last feather on the ten ton stack, crumbling whatever defenses remained and rendering her a wreck.

 _Thank God it’s not about hair,_ B.J. thinks. _This I can handle._

He puts a gentle hand on Chaya’s arm. She turns to look at him, face streaked with tears. 

“What about it, specifically?”

She frowns. “It’s tangled. I can’t... I can’t...” 

He nods. “Turn.” He pauses. “Please, turn around? Permission to attack the tangle?”

It’s her turn to be dumbstruck. She shifts, turning on the cot to give him access to her hair. He assesses the curls – overall, she’s right – it’s a mess. Hours spent under an operating cap, pulled back first in a hurried braid and later tucked into her surgical cap, her brown hair had twisted itself into knots here and there. It was manageable, though, and he set to work gently finger-picking the knots out.

Chaya continued to cry silently for a few minutes, but soon stopped. He continued, not saying anything, knowing it wouldn’t help anyway. They sat in silence as the twilight outside the tent faded to dark, stars beginning to peek shyly from their positions in the sky. B.J. finished picking out the tangles and patted her shoulder.

“Better?”

She nodded, sliding around to sit next to him. “My sisters and I...” she pauses, searching for the words. “We used to play with each other’s hair. Get the tangles out, braid it. We’d sit on the floor and scratch each other’s scalp, you know?”

“I always loved that,” B.J. says. 

“Me too.” 

They’re sitting side to side, pressed together from knee to shoulder, a comforting pressure that helps ground B.J. in the moment. He’s always a little raw after the kind of surgery they’d been doing, and the company is welcome. Usually, he’d surreptitiously seek Hawkeye for that security, masking the small touches with jokes and gin and the cover of nightfall. Sitting with Chaya was a different kind of good – there was no wondering what she was thinking or worrying over who might see. He relaxes against the frame of the tent, listening to the sounds of camp outside the canvas.

\- - -

When Potter takes over for Hawkeye, he leaves post-op and all but crawls his way across the camp. He pulls the door open and creeps in, quietly shutting it behind him. It’s some horrid hour between midnight and morning – he decides he’d rather not know at this point, but judging by the horrible smell emanating from the side of camp where the mess tent resides, it can’t be too far from breakfast.

“Hey, Hawk.”

The deep grumble makes him jump for two reasons: First, the voice came from Chaya’s cot, and he _knows_ she doesn’t sound like that. Secondly, he hadn’t expected to find anyone awake.

“Damn, Beej. I would’ve used the little boy's room first if I’d have known you were going to scare me like that. What’re you – what?” Hawkeye gestures at the scene in front of him. In the moonlight, he can see Chaya’s head resting on B.J.’s shoulder. 

B.J. shrugs, then remembers Hawkeye probably can’t see him.

“It’s a long story. Every time I tried to move, she’d make all these sad little noises.”

“Bad dreams?”

“I dunno.”

“You been awake all this time?”

He’s silent, and that’s answer enough for Hawkeye.

“Well I for one am going to collapse on my bed before I collapse on the floor.” He tapped B.J.’s outstretched knee briefly as he passed, unlacing and kicking out of his boots. He’s hardly horizontal before falling asleep, burrowing into the cot and passing out.

\- - -

When Chaya blinks awake, the sun is well past it’s morning post. Rising stiffly, she dresses and exits the tent, pausing in the sun to stretch her back. In the mess tent, she surveys the crowd, and Klinger waves her over.

“Some eggs, huh?”

She pokes at the pile of food skeptically. “So that’s what it is.”

He grins. “My ma used to make me eggs. Best eggs you’ve ever tasted. She’d sing while she cooked,” he confides. “It helps.”

“I’ll try it sometime. Hey, have you seen the boys?”

Klinger nods. “Hawkeye and B.J. were tag teaming post-op earlier. Major Winchester is supposed to be back any time, and Potter said he can take over.”

It would be a relief to have Charles back – even one more doctor to share the load would ease the stress considerably.

Finishing her food, Chaya makes her way over to post-op. Entering, she catches sight of Hawkeye coming toward her from the opposite end of the building. 

“Ah, speak of the devil and she shall appear.”

Chaya shoots him a look. “You were talking about me?”

“Ahh, so you admit it!”

She rolls her eyes. “What is it?”

Hawkeye motions for her to follow him. Together, they push through the doors and into the OR. The lights are off, the sun sprawling on the floor in small patches from the windows. At the end of the room, a stretcher is propped between two supply boxes. A long, lean figure stretches across it, one arm hanging toward the floor.

Margaret joins them at the door. “We were checking surgical packs before we sterilize them,” she whispers. “He was sitting up one minute, then I turned my back to get another pack and when I came back, well.” She motions toward B.J.

A flood of tender gratitude for the surgeon envelopes Chaya. She knows she was a mess the night before. She hated losing patients – they all did – but usually she handled it alright. The stress and fatigue had worn her thin, and B.J. had been there to pick her up. 

Chaya pushes the door open and creeps into the room, swiping a blanket from the stack by the door. Gently, slowly, she pulls B.J.’s arm up to rest beside him in the cot. Spreading the blanket across him, she tiptoes out of the room to join Hawkeye in pre-op. She feels fully herself again. Tired, maybe, but the sun looks brighter and the air seems to suddenly crisp. Reaching for the clipboard Hawkeye’s holding, she smiles at him.

“Looks like it’s you and me, mister.”


End file.
